


Book of Lies

by glorious_spoon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-15
Updated: 2011-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 13:12:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone in the panic room, Castiel contemplates faith and betrayal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Book of Lies

It’s Dean’s hand on his shoulder, Dean’s rough ungentle grip. Castiel is too drained to fight him, too drained to really register the furious words Dean snarls in his ear. He understands the tone, though, and the fingers gripping his upper arm, hot through the cloth of his bloody shirt, feel like a familiar brand.  
  
There’s the creaking sound of a door, other voices that float outside his ability to comprehend. Bobby. Sam.  
  
Dean snaps something else, and the hand on Castiel’s shoulders propels him violently forward, then lets go. The door slams shut, and he’s alone. Again.

***

The next time he opens his eyes, Sam is straddling the other chair. He has a plate of food in his hand, and he looks sympathetic. “Here. Brought you something.”  
  
“I don’t need to eat,” Castiel says. He doesn’t meet Sam’s eyes. “Where’s Dean?”  
  
Sam sighs and sets the plate down, but not before Castiel sees his mouth tighten a little. “Upstairs getting hammered.”  
  
“He’s not taking this well.” Dean does not have good coping mechanisms. This much, Castiel has observed. This much is something he’s certain of. Dean is human, weak, unreliable. He can’t help it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Castiel has watched Dean for a long time; his fault lines are predictable, and he always breaks along them.  
  
“No,” Sam admits. “He’s not. He trusted you.”  
  
The past tense stings, but Castiel doesn’t let it show. If Dean hasn’t learned by now to be careful where he places his trust, he never will. It’s no longer Castiel’s problem. “And you?”  
  
Sam shrugs. The smile on his face is small and hard and almost entirely without humor. “Let’s just say I get where you’re coming from.”  
  
He leaves the plate when he goes, and Castiel looks at it for a long time before reaching out and pulling it to him. Cheeseburger and french fries, all of it going soggy and cold now. He eats every bite all the same, salt-grease taste on his tongue, and he’s thinking of the echoes of Jimmy that still linger in his mind. Jimmy could afford to eat well, but greasy fast food was one of his few vices.  
  
One of Dean’s, as well, but Dean is a man of many vices and Castiel isn’t willing to think about him now, anyway.

***

The next day, Bobby brings the food. Noodles, this time, in a takeout container. Castiel explains yet again that he doesn’t need to eat, and Bobby just snorts. “You got anything better to do down here?”  
  
“No,” Castiel admits. “I suppose I don’t.”  
  
Crowley will find him, sooner or later. There’s no love lost between them, but he needs Castiel. Until then, all he can do is wait.  
  
He doesn’t ask about Dean this time. Bobby leaves without another word.

***

Bobby has a soul of steel and sharp edges, weary cynicism and a stubborn brightness that doesn’t know how to go out. It’s familiar to Castiel. In another twenty years of living, it will be Dean.  
  
If Dean lives another twenty years, which is looking more and more unlikely as time goes on. This is no longer Castiel’s concern. He cannot continue to risk the fate of heaven and earth for a single flawed human soul.  
  
Two floors up, Dean has clawed his way out of the stew of alcohol and bitterness that he’s been soaking in for the past several days. Two floors up, Dean is tugging on his boots and loading his gun and pulling the hard jingling shape of car keys from his pocket. He moves quickly, an efficient stormcloud of temper with Sam trailing uncertainly in his wake as he stomps out the door.  
  
Outside the borders of Bobby’s house, Castiel cannot sense him, but that’s really just as well.  
  
He closes his eyes, leans his head back against the wall of the panic room, and waits.  
  
For Crowley, maybe. Or maybe not. Certainty was the first thing that died when he chose to follow Dean Winchester rather than Heaven, and he’s already outlived the end of days. The earth has shifted beneath his feet; there is nowhere left to stand, and no one left to pull him back now when he falls.


End file.
